Friday, April 18, 2008

New Robert Anton Wilson page

RAW was a futurist, novelist, scientific philosopher, libertarian and a Ph.D in psychology. He's written many great works of fiction and non-fiction. In a 2003 interview with High Times magazine, RAW described himself as a "Model Agnostic" which he says "consists of never regarding any model or map of Universe with total 100% belief or total 100% denial. Following Korzybski, I put things in probabilities, not absolutes... My only originality lies in applying this zetetic attitude outside the hardest of the hard sciences, physics, to softer sciences and then to non-sciences like politics, ideology, jury verdicts and, of course, conspiracy theory."More simply, he claims 'not to believe anything,' since 'belief is the death of thought.' Wilson described his writing as an "attempt to break down conditioned associations—to look at the world in a new way, with many models recognized as models or maps and no one model elevated to the Truth.

"My goal is to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone, but agnosticism about everything." - Click here to jump to more quotes and this article on Belief Systems.

"Various medical authorities swarm in and out of here predicting I have between two days and two months to live. I think they are guessing. I remain cheerful and unimpressed. I look forward without dogmatic optimism but without dread. I love you all and I deeply implore you to keep the lasagna flying. Please pardon my levity, I don't see how to take death seriously. It seems absurd."

"Whatever the Thinker thinks, the Prover will prove. And if the Thinker thinks passionately enough, the Prover will prove the thought so conclusively that you will never talk a person out of such a belief, even if it is something as remarkable as the notion that there is a gaseous vertebrate of astronomical heft ("GOD") who will spend all eternity torturing people who do not believe in his religion."

1 comment:

My favourite aspect about him was that he took nothing as being "fact" and investigated it for himself. after years of conspiracy bullshit bob was like a cool breeze on a balmy night..at last someone who makes SOME sense